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Microsoft now faces a lawsuit over recent problems with its Xbox Live online gaming service. Three Texas residents filed a lawsuit Friday on behalf of themselves and others who have had trouble connecting to Xbox Live in recent weeks.

The suit, filed in US District Court in Houston, claims Microsoft's outages represent a breach of contract and negligent misrepresentation for which the software maker is liable. The suit doesn't claim specific damages, but notes the amount is in excess of $5 million.

In the suit, the plaintiffs allege that Microsoft should have known strong holiday sales would tax its servers. "Microsoft knew the increase in subscriptions would increase game-play on its servers, yet failed to provide adequate access and service to Xbox Live and its subscribers," read the filing.

Microsoft has apologized for the outage and said it would allow Xbox live subscribers to download a free game. A Microsoft representative was not immediately available for comment.

Motto:"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools- Douglas Adams"

Weapon: Black Magic

I side with the users, but only to the point that they are paying for a service that is not being provided. What I don't agree with is the requested value. $5 million is far in excess. I'd say a refund of the monthly X-box live fee for the duration of the outage.

I am of course assuming people pay for X-box live. If I'm wrong and it's a free service, then to hell with the lot of them.

I would have prefered a class action suit so I could get some of that change as well. Over two weeks of downtime because Microsoft employees are too damned stupid to understand people get stuff for Christmas....Like game consoles, games and the like.

They brought this upon themselves for being completely ignorant of their customer base. Because of that fact alone, I hope these guys win.

Microsoft celebrated their 10 millionth Xbox Live subscriber about 6 months ago. With an average of $4 a month for fees paid by customers, Microsoft earned around $40,000,000 just in the last month alone. Thats $480,000,000 a year folks. Just from Live subscriptions alone. That doesn't include marketplace downloads, arcade games, etc.

Motto:"May God have mercy on my enemies, because I sure as hell won't."

TheMuffin wrote:I would have prefered a class action suit so I could get some of that change as well. Over two weeks of downtime because Microsoft employees are too damned stupid to understand people get stuff for Christmas....Like game consoles, games and the like.

They brought this upon themselves for being completely ignorant of their customer base. Because of that fact alone, I hope these guys win.

Microsoft celebrated their 10 millionth Xbox Live subscriber about 6 months ago. With an average of $4 a month for fees paid by customers, Microsoft earned around $40,000,000 just in the last month alone. Thats $480,000,000 a year folks. Just from Live subscriptions alone. That doesn't include marketplace downloads, arcade games, etc.

So if $5,000,000 still too much?

Tim Buckley wrote:There is no way to simulate a sudden increase of 700,000 people trying to sign on to your servers. You can estimate, you can look at your current numbers and try to multiply and plan ahead. But a lot of problems may not present themselves in testing, and may only show up when under the actual stress of actual users.

Microsoft probably didn't make a good enough prediction of how big the holiday surge was going to be. It's not their fault.

EDIT: And yes, $5,000,000 is too much for not being able to play one facet of a game for two weeks. (Does the Single Player Campaign not function or something?)

It is their fault. It doesn't matter if they can't simulate a 700,000 person increase. Can you imagine if an engineering firm took the same scapegoat as Microsoft? "Oh hey guys we can't simulate what 10,000 people walking across the bridge will make the structure do. Just do whatever you think will work". You don't do that in engineering, and you shouldn't do that in any other field of service. You put in enough of a buffer to either meet the demand, or you double it to ad extra safety so things don't fail. Microsoft failed to do either.

It's their fault. That statement was a cop out and did nothing but blame the people that bought their product for the outage. Instead of taking responsibility for their giant **** up, they say it was the fault of new people. That is so sad man. A billion dollar company can't accept that they **** up.

And to answer your second part. People beat their single player campaigns and missions. People want to interact with their friends in a game. Especially while on vacation. People PAY FOR A SERVICE and it wasn't being provided, nor fixed in a timely manner. Hell I am still having troubles connecting well and the problems started over a MONTH ago with the dashboard update.

People really need to stop being so damned complacent about this stuff. A billion dollar company has severe server troubles and can't provide service to millions of people. We complain and get no answer from the company. People who called customer support were actually told it was their side of the connection and were hung up on!

Look at it this way. You pay for a service. I don't care what. Lets say AOL. Their internet goes down, and they provide you with no explanation and say it's all your fault. You can do nothing about it until they get it fixed. Now flip that around. You fail to deliver your service. In this instance, your payment for their internet. Guess what happens? They turn off your already not working internet. In every instance, the billion dollar company wins. They don't stand for you not delivering your service, so why do you folks back down when the same thing happens to you!?

And this one time, the customers decide they've had enough of all the bullshit excuses and want some money thrown back their way for being loyal, giving this company sometimes thousands of dollars. What happens? Random people on the internet call them douches, morons, idiots, assholes, jerks and every other insult you can think of.

Tell me Shadowman. How would you feel if you bought a new Corvette, took it off the lot, and then it broke down 2 feet out onto the road. And then you turn around and ask for a refund. The dealer says "sorry, can't do that. You'll just have to live with it until we fix it in a few months. Though we can compensate you by allowing you to drive this nice blue Aveo!"

Would you be pissed? Of course you would! Some people just decide to teach the business a small lesson by suing them for horrible service. Honestly, anymore that is the only way to tell the company they've made a serious mistake. This lawsuit is not based on user error or stupidity. Microsoft fouled up badly and someone decided to take the initiative and make them pony up for being a bloated company that has no bearing on the consumer base. I applaud them.

And I'm sorry but an arcade game that costs no money to Microsoft is not a valid compensation for a month of faulty service. They lose nothing by doing that. And because they lose nothing, they also learn nothing.

You don't know law very well. Damages doesn't mean actual damage done to the person filing the lawsuit. Damages when it comes to law, means the compensatory amount of money awarded to the plantiff. The damages would in this case be awarded (or not depending on how the case goes) for Microsoft failing to provide services and breaching of the electronically signed contract you must agree to when signing up.

Your comparison isn't a very good one either. No you couldn't sue McDonald's because one of their restaurants burned down and you couldn't buy food. There are other restaurants in the chain you can go to. You could however if you had bought something from them, and before you had your food delivered, someone who worked there caused the facility to burn down through negligence. And then, you couldn't sue that store itself. You would have to file a lawsuit against McDonald's the company. Unless it wasn't a chain of stores and only a single establishment. But in your example it wasn't.

Motto:"I'm grade-A, 100% prime-cut final boss! I'm going to take over the world any day now!"

Weapon: Multi-Function Sword

Why even ask that question? The answer is so obvious. Someone has seen the chance to try and get rich fast by taking action against a company with so much money it could smother a small country with the bills. I know I'd do it if I weren't so tolerant.

Tekka wrote:Why even ask that question? The answer is so obvious. Someone has seen the chance to try and get rich fast by taking action against a company with so much money it could smother a small country with the bills. I know I'd do it if I weren't so tolerant.

Shadowman wrote:There's also another option: Go do something other than gaming. Like a book or something. Maybe go see a movie, or if it's a nice enough day, go out for a walk or a jog.

I don't understand why they have to sue over something so trivial.

If you walked into a bar, and bought a beer, started drinking, but before you got half the pint down, the bartender slips and launches it onto the floor, would you not expect a partial refund or another drink to replace it?

What you're saying is essentially that this hypothetical barfly should go drink tap water while they wait for the next round to be purchased.

People have paid for a service. That sevice was not delivered, in fact there are still problems with it now.

According to:http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/22067 ... 10-millionThere are roughly 10,000,000 Live subscribers.Assuming the American subscription cost of $49.99(~$50), which is cheaper than most other places, they pay roughly $0.13c per day. (conservative estimate, it's actually nearer 14c)10,000,000 x $0.13 = $1,300,000 per day.Since this has been going on since christmas, which is roughly 2 weeks, or 14 days ago, that makes $18,200,000 paid to microsoft over that period.

Assuming that my experience of a roughly 25% drop in quality of service is about average. (typically games do not conclude, often throwing everyone out of the game, and forcing parties to disband during matchmaking, extending the amount of time sat waiting for games), that gives us damages totalling $4,550,000.

That is a very conservative estimate of how much money Microsoft has cost the XBL user-base.This is not trivial in any sense of the word.

Tekka wrote:Why even ask that question? The answer is so obvious. Someone has seen the chance to try and get rich fast by taking action against a company with so much money it could smother a small country with the bills. I know I'd do it if I weren't so tolerant.

Ordinarily I'm rather cynical myself, but the article in question doesn't address how the damages are to be paid. For all we know it's been requested that it be refunded to XBL subscribers directly, or something else entirely. I really doubt anyone would expect to win a case which is a transparent get-righ-quick scheme.

Why is it that everytime a lawsuit story comes up, it's "money grubbing idiot this" and "greedy that"?

I'm with these guys. You invest in a service that is supposed to work, and it doesn't. Repeatedly. If Comcast provides High Speed Internet that is always down, if there are faulty connections in multiple buildings, customers would be fully justified in suing. One or two, no, but enough people, yes, and this sounds like one of those deals since it's on the behalf of not just themselves, but other people as well.

And it's Microsoft. Bill Gates probably uses that much for toilet paper every morning.

Grahf wrote:It's the same kind of people that sued McDonalds after being burned by hot coffee. They don't seem to have a normal sense of reason or logic, all they see are dollar signs.

That woman won a ton of cash because she was not instructed the when she ordered a cup of HOT coffee it might be hot and that she was not instructed to drink it instead of pouring it in her crotch. If I was the judge on that one, I would have made the woman wear a "I am Stupid" sign around her neck instead they awarded her a 7 figure judgment. That is what is wrong with America's judicial system.